


A Purr-fect Match

by RavenclawPianist



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Magic, cat!Clarke
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2016-02-17
Packaged: 2018-05-09 15:52:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5545913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavenclawPianist/pseuds/RavenclawPianist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellamy just wanted to adopt a cat. It really wasn't his fault that she ended up being, well, more than a cat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Cat Adoptions Should Come With Warnings

**Author's Note:**

> Originally part of my prompt collection "Bellarke Minis," I've decided to turn this into a separate collection of scenes/one-shots from within this AU. Huge thanks to tierannasaurusrex for liking these stories so much and encouraging me to continue with it.

It really was all Octavia’s fault, Bellamy thought as he finished the paperwork. She had dragged him along to an animal shelter to look at a dog she and Lincoln were considering adopting, and he’d gotten distracted by a cat in one of the kennels. The cat was an ivory colored domestic short hair with a single brown dot just above its mouth. One look into the cat’s bright blue eyes and Bellamy was a goner.

Octavia had convinced him that it couldn’t hurt to just hold the cat, so he asked for one of the shelter employees’ assistance. The lanky kid with a nametag reading Jasper handed him the cat. “Her name is Clarke,” he said as Bellamy cradled her in his arms. “She’s pretty sweet once you get to know her.”

The cat reached up a paw to rest on Bellamy’s shoulder before stretching up to sniff at his face. Her whiskers tickled his face. Without further warning she rubbed her head against the underside of his chin.

“Aw, Bell, she likes you!” Octavia said happily. “You have to get her!”

Which explained why he had spent the next fifteen minutes filling out the adoption paperwork and buying a cat carrier, food bowls, litter box, litter, food, and various cat toys from the shelter shop. Octavia stood beside him, cooing at the cat in her newly bought carrier. 

“What will you name her?” Octavia asked as they went to his old pick-up truck, both carrying multiple bags in addition to the cat carrier in Bellamy’s hand.

“She already has a name,” he replied, letting Octavia get settled in the car before handing her the carrier to hold during the drive. “Why change it?”

After dropping Octavia off at the tiny house she shared with her fiancé, Bellamy drove to his own apartment and started to get the cat settled. As soon as she was released from her carrier, Clarke jumped up to sit on Bellamy’s favorite leather chair, watching him as he moved around and placed her box in the bathroom before placing her food and water dishes on the floor just inside the kitchen. 

She mostly stayed close to Bellamy for the rest of the day, sitting either on the couch or squeezing between his leg and the side of the armchair. When he retired to his bedroom for the night, Clarke followed, jumping up onto the bed while he stripped down to just his boxers. He turned to the bed to find her curled up on his pillow.

“Oh no,” he said, picking her up and placing her at the foot of the bed. “You do not get the pillow.”

She darted back up to the pillow while he pulled back the blankets. “Hey!” he picked her up again, rubbing under her chin. “You don’t get the pillow.”

He got in bed before she could make it to the pillow again, although she did wander back up towards his face and curled up beside his shoulder. Turning his head slightly, he saw the cat place her little head on a corner of the pillow. Smiling, Bellamy fell asleep to the sound of her quiet purr in his ear.

Over the following two weeks Bellamy got to know his new pet better. She only played with ribbons and strings, completely ignoring the balls and feather teasers he had bought her. She nearly strangled him one day when she tried to play with the strings on his hoodie. Clarke didn’t sit on laps, but would sit beside him with her furry little body pressed fully against his leg. If she wanted attention she would jump onto the nearest piece of furniture that would put her as close to his eye level as possible and glared at him until he pet her. She purred loudly when he brushed her to remove loose fur. She didn’t like to be seen cleaning herself and would leave the room if he walked in while she was licking herself. Every night she tried to sneak onto the pillow before he got into bed.

It really was nice to come home to a pet, Bellamy thought at the end of a long day of teaching high school history. Clarke sat in the living room when he opened the door, her blue eyes focused on the door. She stretched and strolled over to Bellamy, rubbing up against his legs once he had closed the door. He picked her up with one arm and pet her head as he went to his armchair and sat down. Clarke snuggled down between him and the chair, purring as he stroked her.

About a month after adopting her, Bellamy woke up in the middle of the night to a weight on his chest. He looked down into a pair of big blue eyes, registering that Clarke had apparently decided his chest could serve as a replacement for the pillow. Carefully moving the cat back onto the bed, he rolled onto his side. 

Clarke sat up beside him, eyes focused intently on his face. He watched in bewilderment as she lifted a paw and placed it on his chest. Removing her paw, she paced down the bed to his bare stomach and repeated the motion, placing her paw on his skin. She pressed her cold nose to one of his defined abdominal muscles before curling up beside him. Confused, Bellamy fell back to sleep. 

“I think my cat likes my muscles,” he commented to Octavia the next day when they met for dinner.

Octavia rolled her eyes. “Please don’t tell me you’re becoming one of those weird cat people who consider themselves in a relationship with their pet.”

“I’m serious, O. I woke up last night and she was poking my chest with her paw and she nuzzled my abs!” Bellamy explained. “It was really weird.”

“You need more human companionship,” she replied. “When did you last go on a date? Why don’t you let me set you up with someone?”

It happened again that night. Bellamy woke up to the sensation of Clarke kneading his stomach with her paws. Once she saw that he was awake she walked up his chest and rubbed her head against his cheek, purring.

“You’re weird,” he muttered. “Why can’t you be affectionate during the day?”

She curled up beside his shoulder in response, little head on his pillow. Bellamy rolled onto his side and put an arm around her so she was in the crook of his arm. They both fell back to sleep quickly. 

The next night he went to bed ready for the nightly race to the pillow, only to find Clarke sitting up at the end of the bed with her tail twitching. She watched him as he stripped down to his boxers, eyes glued on him the entire time. “That’s kind of creepy,” he remarked, getting into bed. She walked up the bed to him, nuzzling his face before curling up in her usual spot with her head on his pillow.

A few weeks later Bellamy caved to Octavia’s demands and let her set him up on a date. The woman’s name was Roma. She had brown hair and eyes, worked as a firefighter, and wouldn’t stop talking about baseball throughout their dinner. He invited her back to his apartment for coffee after their dinner out of politeness, flipping on his apartment lights as they entered. Clarke came trotting out of the kitchen, pausing at the sight of the stranger in a green dress. Her fur began to puff up and her back arched as Roma approached her with a hand out.

“Careful, she’s not always great with new people,” Bellamy cautioned as Clarke began to hiss quietly.

Roma started to pull her hand away, but wasn’t fast enough. Clarke lashed out her claws, leaving three long scratches on the brunette’s hand.

“Shit!” Bellamy snatched Clarke up, putting her in the bathroom and closing the door before turning back to face Roma. “I’m so sorry, here, I’ll get you a bandage…”

Roma left soon afterward, no longer interested in coffee. Bellamy let Clarke out of the bathroom, glaring at the cat as she rubbed up against him. “Why’d you do that, huh? She was nice. I know it’s not that you have a problem with women, because you like Octavia. What is it, huh?”

Clarke sat down and stared up at him. Sighing, he picked her up and went to sit in the armchair. He cradled her in his arms, rubbing under her chin. “I can’t have you scaring off every girl I bring here who isn’t related to me, okay?”

Flipping on the television, he watched a show on Ancient Greece until he fell asleep in the chair, still holding Clarke. 

He woke up with a stiff back and sore neck the next morning. Stretching, he opened his eyes and froze at the sight of a short blonde woman wrapped in a blanket and sitting on his couch. “What the Hell?” Bellamy jumped to his feet.

“Um, hi,” she said, looking up at him with oddly familiar blue eyes. “I can explain.”

“How did you get in here?” he demanded, knowing he had locked the door.

She shifted uncomfortably, the blanket sliding from one of her shoulders before she pulled it back up to cover her creamy skin. “Um, you adopted me three months ago?”

“I-” he stopped. “Are you seriously saying that you are my cat?”

“I kind of insulted this traveling gypsy lady by calling her a fake and she cursed me to being a cat for four months,” the woman explained. Bellamy noticed she had a small brown birthmark above her lip exactly like the one his cat had. 

“Magic isn’t real,” he replied reflexively. 

“I just spent four months cleaning myself with my tongue,” she said dryly. “I would be careful what you say about magic.”

Bellamy left her in the living room, searching throughout the apartment for Clarke. After checking every possible hiding space three times, he was forced to acknowledge the cat wasn’t there. He sat down in the armchair again, staring at the blonde. 

“Thanks for not changing my name,” she said calmly. “Although I wasn’t all that fond of the ‘princess’ nickname.”

“If you hadn’t been so demanding, I wouldn’t have given it to you,” he replied absently, continuing to stare at her.

“Right,” she glanced around the apartment awkwardly before looking at him again. Her cheeks turned slightly pink as she blushed. “Um, sorry about the whole muscle-touching thing I did for a while. I was curious. And sorry about the girl last night. I think I got territorial.” 

He put his head in his hands and burst into laughter, looking back up at her once he was able to catch his breath. “Are you telling me my cat had a crush on me?”

“Right,” she said. “This is weirder than expected. You’re taking this surprisingly well.”

“It’s shock,” he replied. Noticing the blanket once again slipping off her shoulder, he stood up and went into the bedroom, returning with a pair of sweatpants and a shirt. “Here.”

She took the clothes into the bathroom, returning in them and looking like a child in his much-too-large clothes. “Thanks.”

“Do you want something to eat?” he asked.

She perked up slightly. “Would you mind making pancakes? You made them last weekend and I wanted one so badly.”

“What, sick of tuna?” he asked, walking to the kitchen.

“I don’t even like tuna,” Clarke answered mournfully. Bellamy burst into laughter as he got out the mixing bowl.


	2. Cats are Jerks, but I'll Try Not to Be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke's POV for the previous chapter

“Hi, I’m not here for a reading or whatever,” Clarke said as she sat down across the table from the fortune-teller. “I just wanted to ask, do you ever feel bad about lying to people and taking their money for telling them random things they want to hear?”

The dark woman scowled at her, eyes lined in thick smeared lines. “Did no one teach you it is rude to come into someone’s place of business and insult them?”

“I’m sorry if I insulted you,” Clarke leaned forward. “But we both know magic isn’t real, so you’re just taking money from people who are desperate for some kind of belief that things will be alright.”

The woman stood up, glaring at Clarke. “I am Indra, fifth generation psychic and spirit worker, and you, child, will soon learn a very important lesson about picking fights you cannot win.”

Clarke felt a pinching at the center of her spine, followed by the feeling of her entire body crumpling in on itself inside her skin. She screamed in pain, only to have it stop moments later. Opening her eyes, she realized everything seemed weirdly large and Indra towered over her with a smirk. Clarke glared back at her. “What the hell was that?”

Instead of the words, all that came from her were meows. Clarke frowned, only to find that her facial muscles weren’t working quite right. She looked down at her legs, staring when she realized that they were small, covered in fur, and had a tail twitching around them. “What the hell?!”

Indra laughed. “Keep talking all you like, kitty. You’ll have four months to rethink your stance on magic. Now, I’m not a fan of cats, so why don’t we take a trip over to an animal shelter?”

Clarke had thought normal doctor’s appointments were awkward (it’s bad enough having a doctor ask about your sexual activity, worse when you know the doctor works with your mother and will tell her your answers), but going through the intake process at an animal shelter was a million times worse. She had been poked and prodded, had blood drawn, her teeth checked, and had been checked for what genitals she possessed. After all that, she was placed in an individual kennel in a room of other cats in kennels. A bowl of dry cat food was placed in her kennel along with a water bowl and a soft blanket. In the back corner was a litter box. 

“Aww, what a sweetheart!” An older woman commented as the shelter worker closed the kennel door. “Did she just come in?”

“Yeah, apparently she was found wandering around a neighborhood a few towns over,” the worker said. “Would you like to visit with her?”

Clarke backed away from the door, glaring at the woman. 

“Oh, no, she doesn’t seem ready to meet with people,” the woman said. “I was actually hoping to visit with that orange cat, Peanut?”

“Sure thing,” he said, opening the corresponding kennel and pulling out a fluffy orange cat. Clarke suddenly found herself wondering if any of the other cats were once people. 

Two weeks passed without note. A fair amount of people had cooed at her from outside her kennel, wiggling their fingers through the bars of the door. One family had asked to visit with her in one of the private adoption rooms and she had spent the whole time hiding under a chair in the corner to avoid the two toddlers. She had gotten as used to her kennel as she could, although she really hated going to the bathroom in her litter box and wasn’t really sure how she felt about grooming herself with her tongue. She’d even let one of the workers, a boy named Jasper, pet her a little when he gave her fresh food and water. He was the worker she recognized best, as he had moved her on her sixth day to a kennel in the main part of the shelter where she could be seen by more visitors. 

The boredom was the worst part, she thought to herself as she paced back and forth at the front of her kennel. She couldn’t find any interest in the toy mouse they’d left in her kennel, and she could only sleep for so long. Settling down on her blanket, she sat up and watched people walk past her kennel as they went down the hall to the room with the dogs. 

She perked up a little when a tall man with messy dark hair stopped in front of her kennel. He had warm brown eyes and freckles sprinkled all over his face. His dark green Henley fit a little snugly, giving Clarke hints at muscles underneath. Silently she cursed the fact that she wasn’t herself, and so couldn’t even try to flirt with him or give him a come-hither look or anything. Jasper was with him, as was a young woman with green eyes and long dark hair. “Hey, O, look at this cat.”

The woman stopped beside him. “Aww, she’s so pretty. It’s a she, right?” she asked Jasper. 

He nodded. “Yeah, she’s a girl. Do you want to hold her?”

The new man hesitated a little. The woman grabbed his arm. “Oh, come on, Bell, she looks so sweet! You could just hold her, you don’t have to adopt her, right? Just look at her!”

He looked back at Clarke and she stretched her front legs out before walking lazily to the door. She couldn’t flirt, but she wasn’t going to refuse to be held by an attractive guy. The man nodded a bit. “Yeah, sure. Can I hold her? Is that allowed?”

Jasper opened the kennel door, picking her up gently before handing her to the man. “Her name is Clarke,” he said. Clarke was pleased to know Indra hadn’t been totally awful and let her keep her name rather than telling people she was named something ridiculous like Fluffbutt. “She’s pretty sweet once you get to know her.”

The man held her gently, rubbing her behind her ears as he looked down at her, a small smile on his face. She moved around in his arms until she could stretch out her paws to rest on his shoulder and push herself into somewhat of a standing position. She looked at his face for a moment, admiring his bone structure, before rubbing her head against the underside of his chin.

“Aww,” the woman cooed. “Bell, she likes you! You have to get her!”

“What happened to not having to adopt her?” he asked, voice deep and rumbling against her paws. 

“Oh, come on! You were just saying that you get kind of lonely without a roommate,” the woman said. “A cat would be great company!”

He ran a hand down her side, petting her. “She is really sweet.” Clarke rubbed her face against him again. “What’s her fee?” he asked Jasper.

“Her adoption fee is fifty dollars,” Jasper replied. Clarke narrowed her eyes. She was definitely worth more than fifty dollars. “And you can get all the supplies you’d need in our shelter shop.”

He rubbed her behind the ears again before handing her back to Jasper. “Is there paperwork I’ll need to fill out?”

Forty minutes later her new owner was letting her out of the carrier and into his (hers now too, she supposed) apartment. She wandered around the living room a little bit before jumping up onto a worn leather armchair and watching Bellamy place her new food and water dishes in the kitchen and her litter box in the bathroom. Once he had finished setting everything up, he went back to the kitchen and started cooking. Clarke jumped off the chair and went to sit in the archway, watching as he made pasta and some kind of red sauce. He took the finish food into the living room and sat down. She jumped up into his lap, making him lift the dish so there was space for her.

“Whoa there, this is not cat food,” he said. She ignored him and moved to lie down between his leg and the side of the chair. No matter how attractive she thought he was and the fact that she was a cat, it would still be weird to sit on his lap. That was where she drew the imaginary line. 

When he went around turning off all the lights in the apartment, Clarke followed him back into his bedroom, jumping up onto the bed while he changed into his pajamas. She nearly tripped over her paws when she realized he was planning to sleep in just his boxers and raced to the pillow to cover her blunder. He scooped her up into his arms and against his chest (she was right- he had amazing muscles) before setting her back down on the bed. “You do not get the pillow.”

She glared at him and ran back up the bed to curl up on the pillow again while he pulled down the blankets. “Hey!” he picked her up again, scratching under her chin. “You do not get the pillow.” Bellamy set her down again and slid into the bed before she could get to the pillow again. She glared at him briefly before curling up beside his shoulder and stretching herself so she could get her head on the corner of his pillow. He looked at her and smiled, patting her head lightly. “Good night, Clarke.”

Clarke started to purr as they both fell asleep. 

Over the following weeks Clarke adjusted further to being a cat. The cat food Bellamy gave her was less terrible than the stuff they had given her at the shelter, although she was not a fan of the aftertaste the tuna left in her mouth. She also desperately missed things like chocolate, vodka, and pizza. Once while Bellamy snacked on potato chips while watched TV she stuck her head in the bag and pulled out one of the chips, licking the salt from it until Bellamy took it away and placed the bag where she couldn’t easily reach it. God, she missed junk food.

She also learned a lot more about Bellamy. He taught high school history and would usually spend all of Saturday morning and Sunday grading homework and planning the next week’s lessons. Clarke would curl up beside him on the couch while he dealt with all the papers, occasionally petting her briefly before returning to his work. He would spend Saturday afternoons and evenings with his sister and her fiancé, Lincoln, a huge man who would always pick Clarke up and stroke her until she was relaxed enough to fall asleep in his arms. Octavia would bring over long pieces of yarn for Clarke to play with, something that both excited and confused Clarke, and then would rub her behind the ears while talking with the men. 

She had learned Bellamy sang in the shower, usually Taylor Swift songs, and mostly watched the History Channel and PBS. He took daily runs (she tried to ignore the way he looked when he got back- sweaty was a very good look on him) and would wind down from the day by reading Clive Cussler books. Each night they would race each other to his pillow, although she would usually let him win and just take her corner. 

About five weeks into their arrangement, Clarke was up in the middle of the night. After having some water and using her litter box, she returned to bed and stared at Bellamy for a moment. The blankets had slid down to rest around his hips, leaving his chest exposed. Her eyes slid along the lines of his abs, noting the freckles that extending to his chest. She wandered up the bed to him, stepping onto his chest and curling up there, wishing she was doing so as a human instead.

She felt when Bellamy woke up and his breath became less steady. Clarke looked up and met his eyes as he looked at her, eyebrows raised. He gently lifted her from his chest and set her down on the bed beside him, rolling onto his side. She kept eye contact with him as she lifted a paw and placed it on his chest, just below his heart. Removing her paw, she padded down the bed to his stomach, and placed her paw there as well, feeling him flinch from the cold of her paw pad. Deciding to throw cation to the wind, she pressed her nose against him, smiling internally when he flinched again at the cold touch. 

“What the hell?” he muttered as she returned to the pillow. She curled up beside him and pretended to go to sleep, wishing she could just be human again and touch him for real. 

The next night she was awake around two in the morning again, staring at Bellamy. She walked across the bed to stand on his stomach, kneading him with her paws. He jolted awake and stared at her before she walked up his chest and rubbed her face against his. “I wish I was human,” she said, although all he heard was her meow. “We’d totally be making out by now.”

“You’re weird,” he muttered. “Why can’t you be affectionate during the day?”

She just rubbed her face against his one more time before curling up beside his shoulder and purring.

A month and a few weeks later she watched as he put on a nicer pair of jeans and a blue button-down shirt. He stood in front of the mirror and messed with his hair for a little while before grabbing his wallet and keys and patting her on the head. “I’ll be back later. Try not to destroy anything.”

She swished her tail in response. “Not my fault you got back late to feed me. That vase was ugly anyway.”

He smiled as she meowed. “Wish me luck!”

Clarke ignored him as she went to curl up on the leather armchair. She was woken three hours later when the apartment door opened. Trotting out to greet Bellamy, she stopped at the sight of a brunette in a green dress. She’d met most of Bellamy’s friends, but she’d never seen this woman before. Jealousy rushed through her as she realized he’d been on a date, fur puffing out as she glared at the unknown woman.

“Careful, she’s not always the best with new people,” Bellamy told the woman as she approached Clarke. Clarke hissed softly in agreement, claws beginning to come out. The woman reached out to pet her, and Clarke swiped at her hand. Red lines were left as a sign to stay away.

“Shit!” Bellamy swore, grabbing Clarke. “I’m so sorry, I’ll grab you a bandage!” he put Clarke in the bathroom before closing the door, leaving her in the little room. 

“Green is a terrible color on you!” she yowled at the unknown woman. “And your eye makeup looks too heavy! I bet you thought you’d be able to seduce him or something but not tonight, you floozy!”

She paced around the room until Bellamy opened the door again and she rushed back into the living room. Clarke rubbed up against his legs once she realized the woman was gone, ignoring his glare. 

“Why’d you do that, huh? She was nice. I know it’s not that you have a problem with women, because you like Octavia. What is it, huh?” he looked at her while she continued to purr. After a moment she sat down and stared up at him, her silent order for him to pick up. Sighing, he complied, carrying her over to the leather armchair. ““I can’t have you scaring off every girl I bring here who isn’t related to me, okay?”

Bellamy flipped on the TV and cradled her in his arms, rubbing behind her ears as she purred. He slowly fell asleep and Clarke nestled closer to him as her own eyes grew heavy. 

She woke up around dawn with a tugging pain in her stomach. Jumping off Bellamy, she fell to the floor and curled in on herself as the pain grew exponentially worse. It felt like every bone in her body was trying to expand until in a flash of the most intense pain she’d ever felt, she blacked out. When she came back into consciousness, she realized she felt a lot larger than previously and was cold. Looking down at herself, she realized that where there had been fur, there was now just skin. With a strong wave of relief, she realized she was human once more. 

Scrambling to her feet, she grabbed the blanket draped over the back of the couch and covered herself. Looking around the apartment, she tried to figure out what to do until Bellamy moved and she froze. Carefully she lowered herself onto the couch. A moment later Bellamy stretched and opened his eyes, freezing when he saw her.   
“What the hell?” Bellamy jumped to his feet.

“Um, hi,” she said, looking up at him and clutching the blanket tighter. “I can explain.”

“How did you get in here?” he demanded, voice reminding her of when she had done something bad, like breaking the vase or throwing up on his rug (God, hairballs had been awful. She really needed to brush her teeth.)

She shifted uncomfortably, the blanket sliding from one of her shoulders before she pulled it back up to cover her again. “Um, you adopted me three months ago?”

“I-” he stopped. “Are you seriously saying that you are my cat?”

“I kind of insulted this traveling gypsy lady by calling her a fake and she cursed me to being a cat for four months,” she explained, knowing it sounded crazy. She watched his eyes widen in disbelief, once again noticing the niceness of his face.

“Magic isn’t real,” he told her. 

“I just spent four months cleaning myself with my tongue,” she said dryly. “I would be careful what you say about magic.”

Bellamy left her in the living room, searching throughout the apartment. She listened as he went through her room thoroughly, calling for her. After about ten minutes he came back to the living room and threw himself back into the armchair, staring at her. 

“Thanks for not changing my name,” she said, faking a calmness she did not feel as butterflies spun around in her stomach. “Although I wasn’t all that fond of the ‘princess’ nickname.”

“If you hadn’t been so demanding, I wouldn’t have given it to you,” he replied absently, continuing to stare at her.

“Right,” she glanced around the apartment awkwardly before looking at him again. Her cheeks turned slightly pink as she blushed. “Um, sorry about the whole muscle-touching thing I did for a while. I was curious. And sorry about the girl last night. I think I got territorial.” 

He put his head in his hands and burst into laughter, looking back up at her once he was able to catch his breath. “Are you telling me my cat had a crush on me?”

“Right,” she said, blushing harder. “This is weirder than expected. You’re taking this surprisingly well.”

“It’s shock,” he replied. Bellamy left the room for a minute before returning with a small pile of clothes. “Here.”

She took the clothes into the bathroom, recognizing them as his favorite pair of sweatpants and an old AC/DC shirt he’d worn a few times. Clarke threw them on quickly and folded the blanket again before returning to the living room. “Thanks.”

“Do you want something to eat?” he asked.

She grinned, knowing he was basically incapable of not taking care of people. “Would you mind making pancakes? You made them last weekend and I wanted one so badly.”

“What, sick of tuna?” he asked, walking to the kitchen.

“I don’t even like tuna,” Clarke replied, the memory of the cat food taste far too recent. Bellamy burst into laughter as he got out the mixing bowl.


	3. A Support Group May be in Order

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If there's a particular thing you want to see in this AU- their first date, Clarke telling Raven (her roommate, for those of you wondering) that she was a cat, more of Lincoln's animal curse story- please let me know! I love hearing from you all and any ideas would be appreciated!

In hindsight, Bellamy probably could have found a better way to introduce her as a human to his sister. As it was, he led Octavia into his living room where Clarke stood waiting while Lincoln went straight to his kitchen with an armful of bags. “O, you know Clarke. She used to be my cat.”

Clarke winced, waving awkwardly. “Hi.”

Octavia looked back and forth between them, pausing to look closely at Clarke. Her eyes darted from her blonde hair to her blue eyes and finally lingered on the beauty mark above her lip. “You were the cat?”

“It’s kind of a complicated story,” Clarke began, cutting off when Octavia punched her brother in the shoulder. 

“Ow!” Bellamy stepped back, rubbing the place Octavia had hit. “What was that for?”

Octavia shook her head, hitting him in the arm again. “I told you not to be the weird person who thinks they’re in a relationship with their cat and then YOU GET INTO AN ACTUAL RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR CAT?! WHAT THE HELL, BELLAMY?!”

“She’s a human now,” Bellamy pointed out as Clarke backed away from the siblings, leaving them to argue in the living room. 

Octavia scowled. “That is so not the point!”

Clarke joined Lincoln in the kitchen, leaning against the counter as the large man pulled out the ingredients for fajitas. He nodded to her, a small smile on his face. “So you were the cat, huh?”

She sighed and took a beer out of the fridge. “Yeah. I kind of picked a fight with a fortune teller and she cursed me. Ended up spending four months as a cat.”

Lincoln nodded calmly. “You got off easy. I got turned into a bird for a year.”

“What?” she demanded. “Are you making fun of me? Seriously, this was a real issue I had to deal with.”

Lincoln shook his head, pulling a skillet out of a bag. “No, I mean it. I got into this, well I wouldn’t call it a fight, but I got into some trouble with a fortune teller and she turned me into a bird for a year. A hawk, technically. I’ve avoided that part of town ever since. I’d really rather not run into Indra again.”

Clarke nearly dropped her beer. “Indra was the one who cursed you?”

“Yeah,” Lincoln looked over at her. “You too?”

“NORMAL PEOPLE DON’T ADOPT THEIR GIRLFRIENDS!” Octavia screamed from the other room. They both ignored her.

“Oh my god,” Clarke set down the drink. “How many people has she cursed? Should we start a support group? What did you do to get cursed for a year? What was it like being a hawk?”

“A support group might draw in some crazies,” Lincoln replied slowly. “We can’t exactly put up posters advertising a support group for animal curse victims.”

“Does Octavia know?” Clarke asked more softly. 

He shook his head. “It’s not exactly something that comes up in conversation, and it’s hard to tell people without seeming insane.”

“True,” Clarke sighed. “I don’t know how I would have explained it to Bellamy if he hadn’t basically seen it happen.”

“How did that go?” Lincoln asked. 

She shrugged. “I woke up in the middle of the night, transformed, and then waited on the couch for him to wake up. It was an awkward morning.”

Lincoln grinned. “I got arrested after transforming back. The police thought I was a nudist and trying to cause a scene.”

Clarke laughed. They heard Bellamy yell from the other room. “IT’S NOT MY FAULT THE CAT TURNED OUT TO BE A HOT GIRL! YOU’RE THE ONE WHO TOLD ME TO ADOPT HER!”

“Um, thanks for being so nice to me while I was a cat, by the way,” Clarke said. “You, um, were really good about how you held me. Octavia squeezed me a little tight sometimes, but you were always really careful.”

He shrugged, the slightest blush coloring his cheeks. “After being an animal, I know how important it is for people to be gentle. And you were a sweet cat.”

“She’s also a sweet person,” Bellamy commented, joining them in the kitchen. Octavia followed, leaning up against Lincoln. “Although she does still try to steal my pillow.”

“You could just buy more pillows,” Clarke reminded him. “It would solve the problem.”

Octavia narrowed her eyes slightly. “How long ago did you change back?”

“About a month?” Clarke asked Bellamy. He nodded. “About a month.”

“And you’re living here now?” she asked.

“God no,” Clarke laughed. “I share an apartment with a friend. She took me in after my last landlord kicked me out for not paying rent for four months, although she does seem to think I’ll just up and disappear again.”

“She doesn’t believe you were a cat for four months?” Octavia said wryly. 

Clarke wrinkled her nose. “I told her I took a spur of the moment backpacking trip through Europe. I don’t think she really buys it, but I haven’t found a good way to explain the cat thing yet.”

“Just have her meet Bell,” Octavia suggested. “He’s really great at breaking the news.”

“Hi, I’m Bellamy. Clarke was my cat for a while, and now we’re dating,” Bellamy joked. Clarke elbowed him. “Or you can just tell her. Whichever.”


	4. I'm Gonna Be Fine (Maybe not Tonight)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is less light-hearted than the rest of this AU, but I realized that being turned into another animal would probably have some bad mental side effects. Next part should go back to being fun.

“Hey,” Clarke smiled and quickly kissed Bellamy on the cheek before passing through the doorway into his apartment. “So I picked up dinner from that Thai place around the corner. I figured it would be easier-” she froze in the living room, staring at a gray cat curled up on the couch. “No. Bellamy, tell me you didn’t adopt another cat.”

He shrugged, taking the bag of take-out from her as he went into the kitchen. “I missed the companionship. Why are you freaked out?”

“Because your last cat was me!” she replied. “I mean, last time you adopted a cat it turned out to be a human. What if the same thing happens again? What if you like that cat more than you like me? Are you just going to keep adopting cats and dating them?”

Bellamy’s eyebrows shot up on his forehead. “You do realize how insane that all sounds, right?”

Clarke closed her eyes and rubbed her temples, a headache beginning to form. “Bellamy, how do we know if this cat is really a cat?”

He sighed, setting plates down on the counter before joining her in the living room. Bellamy went to dig something out of the closet while Clarke glared at the cat. The cat ignored her, instead remaining curled up in a tight ball with just the end of its tail twitching to prove it was awake. 

Bellamy sat down on the ground beside the coffee table, spilling Scrabble letters out of the bag onto the table. “Nike, if you are a human cursed to be a cat please jump over here and spell something out for us.”

The cat didn’t move. Bellamy looked up at Clarke. “Satisfied?”

“Let’s leave the letters while we eat,” Clarke insisted. “Just in case.”

Bellamy stood up, letting out a long-suffering sigh as he did so. They ate at the kitchen counter, Clarke facing the living room and watching the cat. She continued to watch as Bellamy did the dishes and stored the leftovers in the fridge. When he turned back to the counter, she was sitting on the floor beside the couch, hand hovering over the cat.

“What are you doing?” he asked, sitting down on his leather chair. 

“I’m going to pet her,” Clarke said, a small frown on her face.

Bellamy waited for a moment while Clarke’s hand remained over the cat. “So why don’t you?”

“I’m kind of weirded out,” she admitted. “Five months ago, this was me.”

“Have you talked with anyone about that?” Bellamy asked, leaning forward in the chair, arms braced on his legs. “I mean, other than me. You probably have some kind of cat-linked PTSD that should be addressed.”

Clarke laughed dryly. “Yeah, it’s really easy to find therapists who specialize in animal transformation curses and don’t send people to mental hospitals for thinking they were cats for a few months,” she sighed. “I’ve met with Lincoln a few times to talk about it, but I don’t know how much it’s been helping. He’s really big on meditation and focus to remember who he is and I get bored if I have to sit still for more than five minutes.”

Bellamy sat quietly as Clarke slowly put her hand back into her own lap without touching the cat. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

She shook her head. “I think it’s just something I have to figure out.”

“Do you want to watch Netflix for a while?” he asked after a few more moments of silence. “I can put Nike in the bedroom so she won’t bother you.”

Clarke nodded. “That would be good.”

 

Clarke spent less and less time at Bellamy’s apartment over the following weeks. He didn’t push, but she knew he realized it. They’d go out to eat or spend time at the apartment she shared with Raven, neither of them mentioning the change in routine. 

Raven was the first to break. “Okay, you know I love you.”

Clarke looked up from her sketchbook, frowning slightly. “Right.”

“And you know I think Bellamy is okay, for all that he is a nerd and weirdly okay with dating someone who used to be his cat,” she continued.

“Is there a point here?” Clarke asked.

“Why are you two over here all the time now?” Raven demanded. “Did he get new neighbors that you hate or something? You guys are great and all, but sometimes I like to have the apartment to myself.”

Clarke sighed. “Bellamy got a cat.”

Raven threw herself down on the couch beside Clarke. “What, so he’s cheating on you now?”

“Haha,” Clarke replied, nudging her friend with her elbow. “No, I just feel weird there now.”

“Because you were a cat,” Raven said. “Right? God, this whole situation is so messed up.”

Clarke leaned her head against Raven’s shoulder. “Yeah, because I was a cat. I guess it kind of turned out okay, since I found Bellamy, but it still is really weird and how am I supposed to just go on with my life after being a cat for four months?”

“Is that why you quit your job at the clinic?” Raven asked.

“Well, that and because they fired me for ‘job abandonment’,” Clarke replied. “But yeah, it feels weird going back to things before. I can’t just pretend this super insane thing didn’t happen to me, because it did. I think seeing Bellamy’s cat reminded me of all that.”

Raven nodded. “You know what I think?”

“Never,” Clarke replied, smiling slightly. 

“I think you need to just face this head on,” she replied, ignoring Clarke. “Go see the cat, pet the cat, be around it. But also deal with the fact that something impossible happened to you, and no, you can’t go back to before it happened, but you can go forward.”

Clarke was quiet for a moment while she thought it over. “Is that little speech something they teach you in physical therapy after accidents?”

Raven rolled her eyes. “No, that is something I learned on my own after physical therapy was over and I found out I still had to use the damn brace. Some things can’t be undone, so you have to learn how to live with them.”

“So I have to learn to live with Bellamy’s cat?” Clarke clarified.

Raven nodded. “Yep. And maybe get some professional help. Maybe don’t tell them the specifics, but explain that some very big changes happened recently and you’re having trouble dealing.”

 

Two months later Clarke and Bellamy sat on his couch while they watched Planet Earth. Clarke tensed up when Nike jumped onto the couch and walked across her lap to curl up on Bellamy. He tightened his arm around her shoulders while she took a few deep breaths. Hesitantly, she reached out to pat the cat on the head.

“You okay?” Bellamy asked, watching her instead of the documentary.

She nodded, leaning against him. “I will be.”


End file.
